What if Nickelodeon would started as a studio before launching its own TV channel?/Ren and Stimpy
Ren and Stimpy is an American adult animated series created by John Kricfalusi and Joe Murray for Nickelodeon's late-night block NickAdult. The series follows the adventures of title characters Ren, an short-tempered, villainous chihuahua, and Stimpy, a good-natured, dimwitted cat. It premiered on August 11, 1991. Ren & Stimpy uses a very large ensemble cast of recurring characters and became infamous for its off-color humor, sexual innuendo, dark humor, adult jokes and violence. The show is considered one of the best first adult animated sitcoms produced, as well as one of the longest-running TV animated series in television history. Ren & Stimpy received mixed to very positive reviews during its first ten seasons, which are generally considered its "Golden Age". It would go on to receive widespread critical acclaim around the years, and has since developed a cult following and had a long-lasting influence on television animation. Premise The series centers on Ren Höek (voiced by John Kricfalusi in seasons 1–2, seasons 11-20; Billy West in seasons 3–onwards), a short-tempered, "asthma-hound" Chihuahua, and Stimpson J. "Stimpy" Cat (West in seasons 1-10; Eric Bauza in seasons 11-onwards), a dimwitted and happy-go-lucky cat. Their best friends are: Tracey Höek (Tara Strong), Ren's pampered, religious and bigoted sister and Stimpy's girlfriend/wife; Rocko (Carlos Alazraqui), a timid Australian immigrant wallaby; Heffer Wolfe (Tom Kenny), a fat and enthusiastic steer; Filburt (Doug Lawrence), a neurotic turtle who often feels uncomfortable or disturbed; and Rocko's pet dog Spunky (Alazraqui). Living next door to Ren and Stimpy are a middle-aged couple, Ed Bighead (Charlie Adler), a cynical and crass toad who despises the duo; and his compassionate and more friendly wife Bev (Adler). The duo fill various roles from episode to episode, including outer-space explorers, Old West horse thieves, and nature-show hosts, and are usually at odds with each other in these situations. While the show was sometimes set in the present day, the show's crew tended to avoid "contemporary" jokes about current events. The show extensively features off-color and absurdist humor, and slapstick. The show features a host of supporting characters. Some appear only in one episode, while others recur and occasionally appear in different roles. They may either be part of the storyline, or make cameo appearances with little bearing on the plot. Some, such as Mr. Horse, are exclusively cameo-based, spontaneously appearing as a running gag. All of the characters in Ren and Stimpy are anthropomorphic animals of varying species, the vast majority of whom are mentally unstable. Kricfalusi said that he matched personalities of his characters to the various animals in the series to form a social caricature. Setting Ren and Stimpy is set in a generic fictional American town called O-Town, located near the Great Lakes. Places in the town include: Chokey Chicken, a parody of KFC and a favorite restaurant/hang-out place for Ren, Stimpy and Tracey; Conglom-O Corporation, a megacorporation with the slogan "We own you" that owns almost everything in town; Heck, a place of eternal torment run by Peaches where "bad people" go when they die; Holl-o-Wood, a town that resembles Hollywood; and Kind of a Lot O' Comics, a comic book store owned by a cruel toad named Mr. Smitty, where Rocko works. Origins and creation According to animator William Wray, John Kricfalusi created the characters Ren and Stimpy in 1978 for "personal amusement" while studying at Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada. He was inspired to create Ren by an Elliott Erwitt photograph, printed on a postcard, called "New York City, 1946", showing a sweatered chihuahua at a woman's feet. Stimpy's design was inspired by a Tweety Bird cartoon called A Gruesome Twosome where the cats in the animation had big noses. When Nickelodeon approached Kricfalusi, he presented three shows, among them a variety show titled Your Gang or Our Gang with a live action host presenting different cartoons, each cartoon parodying a different genre. Ren and Stimpy were pets of one of the children in Your Gang, serving as a parody of the "cat and dog genre". The network's vice president of animation production Vanessa Coffey was dissatisfied with the other projects but did like Ren and Stimpy, singling them out for their own series. After Kricfalusi clamed his own dream about making a adult cartoon like filmmaker Ralph Bakshi, Coffey decided to pitch it as a adult cartoon for a newly-created late-night block. Production of the series' pilot episode began in 1989 after Kricfalusi pitched and sold Ren and Stimpy to Nickelodeon's late-night block NickAdult. The pilot was produced by Kricfalusi's Los Angeles-based animation company, Spümcø, and screened at film festivals for several months before the show was announced in Nickelodeon's NickAdult line-up. Joe Murray joined the show, creating the characters of Tracy Höek, Rocko, Heffer Wolfe, Filburt, Spunky and Ed and Bev Bighead. Production Process The animation production methods used in Ren and Stimpy were similar to those found in Golden Age cartoons of the early 20th century, where a director supervised the entire process. These methods are in contrast to animation production methods in the 1980s, where there was one director for animation and a different director for voice actors, and the cartoons were created with a "top-down" approach to tie in with toy production. Animator Vincent Waller compared working on Ren and Stimpy and sister series Possum Creek Stories in an interview: "Working on Ren and Stimpy and Possum Creek was very similar. They're both storyboard-driven adult shows, which means they give us an outline from a premise after the premise has been approved. We take the outline and expand on it, writing the dialogue and gags. That was very familiar." According to Kricfalusi, Ren and Stimpy reintroduced the layouts stage, and reemphasized the storyboard stage. Eventually, the production staff drew larger storyboard panels, which allowed for the stories to be easily changed according to reactions from pitch meetings, and for new ideas to be integrated. In 2018, John Kricfalusi was replaced with writers from the Marvel Comics issues of Ren and Stimpy. Animation The show's aesthetics draw on Golden Age cartoons, particularly those of animator Bob Clampett from the 1940s in the way the characters' emotions powerfully distort their bodies. The show's style emphasizes unique expressions, intense and specific acting, and strong character poses. One of the show's most notable visual trademarks is the detailed paintings of gruesome close-ups, along with the blotchy ink stains that on occasion replace the standard backgrounds, "reminiscent of holes in reality or the vision of a person in a deep state of dementia". This style was developed from Clampett's Baby Bottleneck, which features several scenes with color-cards for backgrounds. The show incorporated norms from "the old system in TV and radio" where the animation would feature sponsored products to tie in with the cartoon, however in lieu of real advertisements, it featured fake commercial breaks advertising nonexistent products, most notably "Log". Carbunkle Cartoons, an animation studio headed by Bob Jaques and Kelly Armstrong, is cited by Kricfalusi for animating the show's best episodes beautifully, improving the acting with subtle nuances and wild animation that could not be done with overseas animation studios, such as Nelson Shin's AKOM in South Korea and Jerry Smith's Fil-Cartoons in the Phillipines (in which the latter mostly did ink-and-paint duties) during the first season. Some of the show's earlier episodes were rough to the point that Kricfalusi felt the need to patch up the animation with sound effects and "music bandaids", helping the segments "play better, even though much of the animation and timing weren't working on their own." KJ Dell'Antonia of Common Sense Media describes the show's style as changing "from intentionally rough to much more polished and plushie-toy ready." Kricfalusi had once criticized AKOM's animation on episodes such as "Robin Hoek", "The Littlest Giant", "Marooned" and "Black Hole", due to how slow-paced the animation is (which makes the slapstick fall flat mostly on twos, save for a few scenes which are animated on ones). AKOM was fired after the first season and was replaced with newcomer Rough Draft Korea. Since the 2003 episodes, most of the show's episodes are being animated at Big Star Enterprise, another studio in South Korea. The hand-drawn animation now became too disturbing to look at. It was later changed in 2004, when Carbunkle Cartoons were waiting on payments from Spumco for their work and Kricfalusi and Murray had to find a replacement during production. Big Star Enterprise was let go after a few episodes and the cheaper Flash studio, Boulder Media in Dublin, Ireland was the result. The animation style in the Flash animated episodes is now a mix of the series' typical art style combined with Cartoon Network's Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. Following the change, the animation noticeably got less and less disturbing over time, due to a hiring of new layout artists (suddenly returning the old art style from the first two seasons). As of 2018, the new animation style of the show had stuck (even though they switched from Adobe Flash to Toon Boom Harmony in the early-2010s). Voice cast Kricfalusi originally voiced Ren, styled as a demented Peter Lorre. When Nickelodeon terminated Kricfalusi's contract, Billy West, already the voice of Stimpy, took the role using a combination of Burl Ives, Kirk Douglas and a slight "south of the border accent" for the rest of the series until Season 10. West voiced Stimpy for the Spümcø and Games Animation episodes, basing the voice on an "amped-up" Larry Fine. In 2003, when Kricfalusi was rehired to write and direct new episodes, West left the show after he refused to work with Kricfalusi. He admitted that he was too difficult to work with and participating with him in the new episodes would damage his career. Eric Bauza was hired to replace West as Stimpy, while Kricfalusi reprised his role as Ren. In 2018, when Kricfalusi was fired from the show again due to his recent sexual abuse allegations, West returned to the show to reprise the role of Ren, but not as Stimpy since he remained voiced by Bauza. Ren and Stimpy is also notable for launching the careers of voice actors, including Tom Kenny and Carlos Alazraqui. Guest stars Some notable artists and performers who voiced incidental characters on the show are Frank Zappa, Randy Quaid, Gilbert Gottfried, Rosie O'Donnell, Dom DeLuise, Phil Hartman, Mark Hamill, and Soleil Moon Frye. Kricfalusi's father Mike Kricfalusi and long-time childhood friend Tom Hay provided some voices in some 2003 episodes. Music Ren & Stimpy features a wide variety of music, spanning rockabilly, folk, pop, jazz, classical music, jingles, and more. Three Ren & Stimpy albums have been released: You Eediot!, Crock O' Christmas and Radio Daze. In addition to music written specifically for the show, a number of episodes used existing works by composers such as jazz musician Raymond Scott, Claude Debussy, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Ludwig van Beethoven, Alexander Borodin, Antonín Dvořák, Gioachino Rossini (particularly The Thieving Magpie), and selections from production music libraries such as APM Music, which fans later compiled into several albums. In 1993 a compilation album, You Eediot!, was released as a soundtrack album. The album's front cover is a parody of The Beatles' 11th studio album Abbey Road. Also that soundtracks is also use in Possum Creek Stories. Like: Happy-go-lively use in the episode "Warlusville". Stimpy's rousing anthem titled "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" was composed by Christopher Reccardi and written by Charlie Brissette and John Kricfalusi. A cover of this song, performed by Wax, is included on the 1995 tribute album Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits, produced by Ralph Sall for MCA Records. The line "happy, happy, joy, joy" is first used in episode three of the series; the song is first played in episode six. It is sung by a character introduced as "Stinky Whizzleteats", who is named in the episode's script as Burl Ives, an American folk singer and actor. The song liberally quotes numerous lyrics and lines of dialogue from Ives's films and records, creating a series of non sequiturs. Main theme The opening and closing themes are performed by a group of Spümcø employees under the name "Die Screaming Leiderhôsens". Distribution Episodes Crossover with The George Liquor Show International Syndication Home media Streaming Re-rendered episodes Reception Ratings The premiere episode "TBA/Trash-O-Madness/TBA" got TBA ratings during its debut. Recognitions and awards Criticism Controversies Franchise